Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Ghost Pilot

A commercial airplane pilot with 30 years experience, was flying a 747 from Chicago to Los Angeles. One of the flight attendants on board was his daughter.

During the course of the flight, the plane suffered one problem after another. The pilot did everything he could to compensate for the mechanical failures. His daughter, in the meantime, tried to keep the passengers calm.

Finally, she had a spare moment and slipped into the cockpit. "Daddy, tell me what's going to happen," she said.

"It's serious," her father answered. "We can't get to any airport. I'll have to make an emergency landing in on of those fields down there."

"We're going to die, aren't we?" the daughter asked. Her father looked her straght in the eye. "I promise I will never let anything bad happen to you."

His daughter went back and prepared her passengers for the landing. As they descended, the pilot could barely keep control of the aircraft. Then the landing gear failed. The 747 hit the ground hard. One of the wings broke off and the plane swung around wildly before it came to rest.

Among the passengers there were few lacerations, plenty of bruises and one or two broken bones. But everyone was alive. It was a different story in the pilot's cockpit. In the impact, the pilot's neck had been broken. He was dead.

The daughter was grief-stricken. But she was also proud of her father for having saved the lives of more than 200 people.

Several years later, the daughter was preparing a plane for takeoff. As she stepped into the galley, she saw her father's ghost. "Get off the plane. There's trouble with the engines. If the ground crew doesn't correct the problem, the plane will crash."

Frightened, the woman hurried off the plane, found the foreman of the mechanics and convinced him to re-inspect the engines one last time. The foreman found a fault in the engine which would have caused the plane to explode on takeoff.

The young woman's father had kept his promise. Even in death, he had saved her ife again.

A few different patch sizes,sandpapercarbon fiber rimsor a metal scraper, and a tube of glue), a set of tire levers, and an air pump.Inspect TireWith the wheel removed from your bike, inspect ICAbike01 the outer ICAbike01 surface of the tire to make sure there are no sharp objects like a thumb-tack or thorn stuck in the tread.Remove TirRemove the valve cap and fully deflate the tube bycarbon bike rimsdepressing the valve stem with the hooked end of your tire lever. There are two main types of valve stems, a schrader valve and a presta valve. This tutorial is based on a schrader valve, but I will be covering the different valve types in another tutorial.Now it’s time to remove your tire, one side at a time. Choose a section of tire that is away from the valve and hook one of the tire levers under the bead, directly in line with one of your spokes. Pry one side of the tire bead over the edge of the rim, and then hook the end of the tire lever to the nearest spoke. Insert another tire lever two spokes away from the first, and a third another two spokes away. Now the middle lever should fall out, and you can continue the process. When the tire is loose enough you can just run a tire lever around the rest of the rim to pull the whole side over.After you have removed one side of the tire, the other side should come off very easily.Inspect TubeNow remove the tube from the tire, and try to keepcarbon bicycle rimstrack of where it was positioned in relation to the tire. Inflate the tube to approximately twice its original size. This will expand the hole making it easier to find.Listen carefully to the entire circumferenceof the tube; you should hear a hissing sound that will indicate where the leak is. As a last resort you can submerge the tube in water and watch for bubbles, but you’ll want to avoid doing this as you’ll need the tube to be completely dry in order for the patch glue to work.Once you’ve found the leak, take note of whether it is on the inner or outer side of the tube.If the hole was on the outer side of the tube, inspect the inner surface of the tire in that spot to make sure the object that caused the puncture is not still stuck in the tire. Double check the entire inner side of the tire by running your fingers along the entire surface, feeling for obstacles along the way.If the hole was on the inner side of the tube,inspect yourzipp 404entire rim to make sure there are no sharp burrs in the metal, and that the rim tape is properly protecting the tube from your spoke ends.Now that the rim and tire are clear, it’s time to patch the tube. Select an appropriate sized patch for the hole. Use the sandpaper or scraper provided in your kit to buff the surface of the tube for an area a bit larger than the patch. You need to buff the tube so that it is no longer shiny. If the molding line is running along the area where the patch is to be applied, you must sand it down completely, or it will provide an air channel. Once buffed, avoid touching that area with your fingers.Apply a dab of rubber cement, and then spread it into a thin coat, using your cleanest finger. Work quickly. You want a thin, smooth coat of cement; if you keep fiddling with it as it begins to dry, you’ll risk making it lumpy. The thinner the cement, the faster it will dry. It is very important to allow the cement to dry completely.Peel the foil from the patch and press the patch onto the tube firmly, squeezing the patch tightly onto the tube.